Historically, a trade deficit meant gold and other commodities were leaving your country. Today it means that US dollars are leaving. As I've mentioned on this blog in the past, the effect is that less money is spent on domestic goods resulting in slower GDP growth.

The biggest single driver of our trade deficit is oil imports. Last year alone we imported about 6.9 million barrels of oil per day -- and thanks to Obama's energy policies, that's actually at a 25 year low. Today on Twitter, I decided to quantify that a little: